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bearfeathers · 6 years

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16 Percilot

Read it on AO3: (http://archiveofourown.org/works/13374006/chapters/30778329)

Catching Martin awake has been rather tricky since he’d first emerged from his coma. Getting him awake and clear headed is nearly impossible. All this means is that managing to find a moment to tell him about everything that’s happened while he’s been out has been… difficult. There are a great many things he needs to be filled in on, but at the top of James’s list is Harry.

As far as Martin knows, Harry’s dead. Harry’s been dead since V Day, after all. He'd have no reason to believe that had changed.

Except it had. When James had tried to broach the subject, he’d met with no success what-so-ever. Either Martin wasn’t lucid enough to understand what was being said to him or he simply didn’t believe what James was telling him. More than once he’d thought James to be a figment of his imagination, a dream, something conjured by his drug addled mind. Worse was when he accused James of lying to him, seemingly thinking he was just some spectre out to torment him.

Martin’s never handled pain medication well. Nor alcohol, nor sedatives, nor anything else in that vein. It’s why anyone who knows him has rarely seen him touch more than two drinks in the same day; it does things to him which he’s simply not comfortable with. Unfortunately, there have been times when pain medication and anesthesia weren’t optional and the results were… interesting. At times it could be humorous; Martin had a horrifically foul mouth when he was drugged. Other times, much less so. In that state, Martin had a habit of being much freer with discussing his feelings. It’s not always happy.

And so James has hardly been surprised with his results. Half the time Martin doesn’t even recall their conversations when next he wakes. But James is patient. He can wait. Martin had woken and things can only improve.

A knock at the door rouses James from the light doze he’d slipped into. He calls for the knocker to enter, clearing his throat when he hears the hoarseness of his own voice. The door creaks open and Harry leans in, the majority of his body still in the hall and his hand on the door latch.

“Bad time?” he asks.

“No. No, not a bad time at all,” James says, sitting up in his seat.

Harry has taken to coming round at least once every day, if only to check in. James knows Harry’s been anxious to see Martin awake himself for his own reasons. One of those reasons in particular is something James has a bit of a problem with. He’s known Harry long enough to be able to read guilt in him when he sees it and he knows Harry feels responsible for what had happened up on the bridge. That vile woman may have called his name, but it doesn’t make him responsible. Martin never would have let Harry near her even if he’d been there; not after everything he’d been through. And so the point is rather moot.

Just not to Harry. James has tried to convince him otherwise, but nothing he’s said seems to have sunk in. Harry won’t be satisfied until he speaks to Martin himself. Perhaps not even then. Harry always did have quite the martyr complex, after all.

“How are you feeling today, James?” Harry asks, standing as he always does at the foot of Martin’s bed with his hands in his pockets.

“Fine,” James replies. He sighs at Harry’s pointed stare. “Really. I am. It’s all a bit easier to handle having him awake.”

Harry nods, appearing satisfied with the answer as he stares down at his shoes. “Good. And therapy?”

James rubs the back of his neck, trying to banish the creeping feeling of shame crawling up his spine. “Helping.”

Harry looks as though he’d like to say more, but holds himself back. They’ve had this conversation already. Harry had assured him he had nothing to be ashamed of over and over, had told him that seeking help was a sign of strength and not weakness… James didn’t want to hear it. It made him restless and agitated when they treated him so gently. Harry had learned not to press the issue.

Instead he nods towards Martin. “Has he said anything?”

“Well, the last two things he said to me were: ‘James, I had a nightmare. I was married to a woman. It was the worst thing I could imagine.’ and 'Why the fuck don’t my fucking arms work? James, someone’s turned off my arms.’ so all that really tells me is that the drugs are working and his worst nightmare is being heterosexual,” James relays to him, trying not to smile. “Frankly I never knew he had such a strong opinion on the matter.”

He watches Harry press his fist to his mouth and cough in an attempt to disguise his laugh. He’s not fooling anyone. “Well, that’s… good the medication is working, I suppose.”

“It is,” James agrees with a lopsided smile. “Though I know he’ll kick up a fuss once he gets a moment of clear headedness.”

Harry meets his smile with a faint one of his own. “Yes, well, I suppose he’ll have to forgive us if we prefer it over the alternative.”

James nods, breaking eye contact with Harry to look down at his partner, brushing back strands of dark hair from his forehead. “He certainly will.”

The motion unexpectedly seems to rouse Martin, as he snuffles quietly in his sleep and James feels his hand being gently squeezed. Harry remains quiet, waiting it seems, to see if he might finally get a moment with Martin when his eyes are open.

Martin frowns in his sleep and James hears a hoarse, “Loud…”

Squeezing his partner’s hand, James’s smile grows at least three times in size. “I’m sorry we were being too loud. Are you alright?”

“Mm. Who…?”

James frowns. “Who?”

Cracking his eyes open, Martin squints in the light of the room. James feels like it’s a sight he’ll never tire of. Something as simple as seeing him open his eyes has become the highlight of James’s day. Even if he was only able to fix his bleary gaze on James for a handful of minutes, seeing those dark eyes again was enough.Martin softly clears his throat, though it does little to help his voice. The months spent intubated with a breathing tube were proving hard on his throat and Morgana had advised James it would likely take some time for him to recover his voice fully.

“Who’re you talking to?” Martin rasps, blinking slowly.

James looks up towards the end of the bed where Harry is standing. “Ah, well… Actually, that’s something I’ve been hoping to talk to you about. A lot’s happened while you’ve been out.”

“It has?” Martin mumbles.

“Yes,” James says, squeezing his hand. “Now, I know this may be difficult to understand, but I’d like you to bear with me, alright? Can you do that for me, Martin?”

“Mm,” Martin hums, eyes fluttering shut for a few brief moments before he manages to pry them open again.

“Alright, well… I’ve actually been talking to Harry,” James says, watching Martin carefully for a response.

Harry watches from the foot of the bed, careful to keep his distance for the time being. He’s still out of Martin’s sight at this angle and doesn’t intend to budge an inch until he’s certain James has Martin on the same page.

“No,” Martin says.

“I know, it sounds ludicrous, but…”

“No,” Martin repeats with a slight shake of his head. “Harry’s dead… he’s not coming back. We saw it, James.”

“I know, we did see it. But the thing is he didn’t die from that gunshot. He was picked up by—”

“No, stop,” Martin says, closing his eyes. “Why’re you doing this? Why…?”

“It’s alright, Martin,” James says soothingly, running his fingers through his partner’s hair. “I know it’s difficult to take in. But he’s right here, look.”

Harry takes that as his cue, coming around the bed to stand beside James. Martin’s eyes remain shut, as though trying to block out what James is telling him. And suddenly Harry feels like a stranger among his own friends as he stands there wondering what to say. The truth is he has a great many things he’d like to say, things he’s thought about over the course of some weeks, but standing here now he finds himself scrambling for words.

“Hello, Martin,” Harry says, deciding on the first thing that manages to make it from his brain to his mouth. “It’s good to see you.”

The seconds tick by in silence; long enough for Harry to wonder if he’d drifted off again. Only Martin’s eyes open slowly, wide and dark and disbelieving as his gaze finds Harry. But the recognition he’d been hoping to see never comes. Martin stares for a moment before Harry sees tears beginning to form and his face just… crumples. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, his face pinched with grief.

“No, no, no… It’s not real, it’s just a dream,” Martin says, seemingly to himself. “Why does this keep happening?”

“It’s not a dream,” James assures him, squeezing his hand tight. “A sister agency of ours found Harry and saved his life. He’d had amnesia since then, but Eggsy and Merlin—”

“Stop lying… Stop, I don’t want to do this again,” Martin says, turning his face away from them. He murmurs quietly to himself, “It’s not real. Harry’s gone. I’m just… It’s just another dream.”

Just another dream. Harry wonders just what sorts of dreams he’s been having that would have him accuse James of lying to him. But then, if he believes this is a dream, then James isn’t any more real to him than Harry.

“Martin,” Harry tries again, “I know it doesn’t make a great deal of sense right now. You were injured very badly at the Tower Bridge and Mags has you heavily medicated for that reason. If I were just part of a dream, would I know that?”

“Wasn’t a bridge,” Martin argues. “You wouldn’t believe me. And I couldn’t make you bring James back from Argentina… and I couldn’t stop you from going to the church… and Merlin’s alone. I thought I had to wake up… it was all wrong there…”

“He doesn’t remember the bridge,” James sighs quietly, leaning towards Harry. “He keeps talking about a car hitting him, but he keeps saying that’s a dream, so I’m not sure what he thinks.”

Harry nods silently, once again wondering how best to proceed. It doesn’t seem that there’s any way for him to convince Martin that this is reality and not just a dream. Perhaps he was just too eager and it’s just too soon. He’d only woken a few days prior. If they give him time and try again, they’re more likely to see better results.

They may just have to wait until Morgana deems it appropriate to dial back his medication. If Harry could wait until he were off it completely, he would, but that won’t be happening in the near future. Martin’s injuries are too severe, even with the aid of the nanites. The months of recovery ahead of him will be… painful. Just as they are for Merlin. Not for the first time, Harry wishes there were something he could do which might relieve them of that pain, but this is an arena in which he is entirely powerless.

“I understand,” Harry tells him. “You don’t have to believe me. I’ll come back another time and we’ll try again.”

“Don’t,” Martin says, making a soft, unhappy noise. “You keep coming back… hurts too much…”

He’s dreamed of Harry before. And it had hurt him to do so. Harry feels distinctly uncomfortable with the admission. If he were completely in his right mind, you would have to employ nearly every interrogation technique in the book to pry that sort of information from Martin. While it’s true many of them would have liked to see him be a bit freer with his emotions, they never meant like this.

This isn’t right.

Harry has the distinct impression he’s doing more harm than good here. If his presence is only going to upset Martin, then it seems it would be best if he were to leave. Keeping his expression carefully neutral, he looks to James.

James looks up at Harry, his brow creased and drawn up at the middle in a picture of worry. He hadn’t expected Martin to handle it quite this badly. But perhaps they’d jumped too soon. James had been completely sober when he’d first learned Harry was alive and he’d still questioned it. In Martin’s state… well, he supposes it’s not that surprising.

Listening to Martin’s distraught murmuring, Harry’s posture goes stiff, his shoulders set in a rigid line. Though his expression remains relaxed and seemingly unbothered, James knows this bothers him. Hell, it bothers James to see Martin so uncharacteristically emotional.

“We’ll just… try again some other time,” James tells Harry.

Harry nods once. “I think perhaps it would be best if I left now.”

James sighs slowly. “Unfortunately, I think so. It’s alright, I’ll get him calmed down.”

James watches Harry hesitate briefly, as though not truly wishing to leave. But the moment passes and he offers James another stiff nod before he makes his exit, carrying a weight on his shoulders he hadn’t entered with. James wishes this could have been a happy moment for him. It should have been. But smooth sailing never was a frequent visitor in their track record.

“Martin,” James says quietly, turning his attention back to his partner and trying to settle him down. “Please look at me. I promise it’s alright.”

“I don’t want to see him…” Martin says hoarsely. “I just keep… I don’t want to keep seeing him when he’s not coming back.”

He turns his face back towards James, only to lie still and quiet, taking shaky breaths as James reaches out to wipe the tears from his eyes. The former Lancelot gently brushes his thumb along the curve of his partner’s cheek, wiping away the wet trail even as tears continue to flow. He blinks up at James, dark eyes glazed beneath the heavy veil of medication.

“James?”

“Mm-hm?” James hums. “What is it?”

Martin looks up at him, his eyes sliding to the space just behind his left shoulder, where Harry had been standing. He stares at that space, struggling now to keep his eyes open—James knows he won’t be awake much longer. A sudden, fresh wave of tears comes and Martin squeezes his eyes shut as though each one were somehow causing him pain.

“I miss Harry.”

James swallows thickly at the quiet statement so weighed down with sorrow that it makes his chest cramp. It’s not that he hadn’t known this before; they all had missed Harry, even if some of them were less expressive than others. But seeing Martin so tied up in knots thinking Harry’s still dead, when just the sight of the man brings him to tears because he knows Harry won’t be there when he wakes from what he thinks is a dream, it all makes James worry about how much Martin keeps to himself. He leans forward in his seat, rising enough so that he can press his lips to Martin’s forehead in a soft kiss.

“I know you do, Darling,” James answers him.

He listens to Martin breathing quietly for a time, stroking his cheek and hoping to settle him, gradually watching his expression smooth out as he drifts closer and closer to sleep. He feels guilty for having upset him so greatly by having Harry greet him… but he’d just wanted to have them all together again. He should’ve been patient. Now Martin and Harry are both upset. Not that Harry will admit to it.

“James… Are you real now?”

The groggy inquiry comes with the twitch of Martin’s fingers against James’s hand.

“I’m real now. I’m right here,” James assures him, dipping his head down to rest his forehead against Martin’s.

“…’m sorry,” Martin mumbles.

“Don’t be sorry,” James says, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Just get your rest.”

“Will you still be here when I wake up?” he asks.

“Of course. I’m right here,” James assures him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

That seems to reassure him enough to quietly return to sleep, breathing softly as he still holds onto James’s hand. James presses one more kiss to his forehead before settling back in his seat. They’ll get there eventually. They just have to take one day at a time.

[SEVERAL MONTHS LATER…]“I do not cry,” Martin declares indignantly. “I had my tear ducts cauterized when I was twelve.”

Eggsy watches him cautiously until Merlin rolls his eyes and claps the boy on the back, “You have to stop believing everything he says just because he says it with a straight face.”

“He says bloody everything with a straight face,” Eggsy protests. “It’s impossible to tell when he’s lying.”

“Who says I’m not telling the truth?” Martin grumps.

“Everyone here who saw you blubbering over anything from Harry being alive to a YouTube video of puppies,” James says with a smug smile.

Martin shoots him a dirty look. “Oh, fine, I see how it is. Take advantage of me when I’m drugged up to my eyeballs.”

Harry leans in, wrapping an arm around the younger man’s shoulders with a smile on his face. “Come now, no need to be so sour. We all thought it was very sweet.”

Martin grumbles to himself, his cheeks a healthy pink, but makes no attempt to push Harry away. Apparently even now the novelty of having Harry back with them hasn’t quite worn off. Not even when their new Arthur joins in on teasing him.

“Now, blow out your candles,” Harry tells him.

“No,” Martin says stubbornly.

“Martin, if you don’t blow them out, we’ll start singing again,” Merlin deadpans.

The words have barely left Merlin’s mouth before all the candles have been extinguished. Never let it be said that Merlin didn’t know how to motivate all of them; the man could herd cats if he wished. As Eggsy eagerly hovers over Roxy while she cuts the cake, James leans over to his partner with a smile still firmly in place.

“So, did you make a wish?” he asks.

Martin sighs and closes his eyes, settling back in his seat. “No. Everything I need is already here.”

James’s smile softens at the answer, as offhanded as Martin had meant for it to be. It had been nothing short of a miracle that Martin had lived to see his next birthday and it’s not something James will be forgetting any time soon. Incensed though he may be for their teasing, James knows he’s happy here with all of them whether he shows it or not.

“Oh really?” James asks.

“If you think there’s something I’ve missed, feel free to point it out,” Martin says. “But as far as I can see, everything is right where it ought to be.”

“There, you see? You do have a heart after all,” Merlin says with a grin.

“If I do, it’s only because you’ve added it to my programming,” Martin replies, lips quirked up at the edges in amusement.

Merlin barks a laugh and Martin does his best to duck out of the way when the wizard reaches for him. Unfortunately there’s only so far you can go while sitting in a chair and Merlin has quite the reach. Though his face is scrunched up in annoyance as Merlin pinches his cheek, James can see the smile brewing underneath. Dipping down, he presses a kiss to his partner’s nose.

“Happy Birthday, Darling.”

Thankfully, everyone seems to be preoccupied by cake at that point, so when Martin hauls him in to kiss him proper, no one seems to notice. And if they do, they’re smart enough not to say anything.

#kingsman #percilot #james spencer #lancelot (kingsman)#percival (kingsman)#harry hart #merlin (kingsman)#kingsman fic #my fic

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how2to18 · 5 years

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Buy Shatila Stories from the Peirene Press website. All sales go to support refugees.

THE SHATILA REFUGEE CAMP in southern Beirut, Lebanon, is probably most famous as one of the sites of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. On September 16, 1982, at approximately 6:00 p.m., a militia close to the predominantly Christian Lebanese right-wing Kataeb Party — also named Phalange — began carrying out a two-day massacre in the Sabra neighborhood and adjacent Shatila camp, killing between 460 and 3,500 civilians. The Phalanges, allies to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), had been ordered to clear out the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) fighters from Sabra and Shatila, as the IDF sought to maneuver into West Beirut.

By the time of the massacre, the camp had existed for over three decades. At the end of the 1947–1949 Palestine War — known in Hebrew as the War of Independence and in Arabic as al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe — the State of Israel claimed not only the area recommended by the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine (General Assembly Resolution 181 [II]), but also nearly 60 percent of the area allocated to the proposed Arab state, including the Jaffa, Lydda, and Ramle area, Halilee, parts of the Negev, a strip along the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road, and some territories in the West Bank, placing these lands under military rule. The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (later Jordan) claimed the remainder of the West Bank, which it annexed; the Egyptian military took the Gaza Strip. With Jordan occupying the West Bank and Egypt occupying Gaza, no state was created for the Palestinian Arabs. Around 700,000 of them fled or were expelled. Displaced, many sought refuge in the north, in Lebanon.

The Shatila camp was established in the southern suburbs of Beirut in 1949 by the International Committee of the Red Cross to house the hundreds of refugees pouring into the area from northern Palestine. In the wake of the Syrian Civil War, which erupted in 2011, Lebanon’s population increased by more than one million, and Shatila, according to a 2014 survey by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, has swollen from an intended capacity of 3,000 to up to 22,000. The population has continued to grow, and in her introduction to Shatila Stories, Meike Ziervogel puts it at up to 40,000.

With the history of the atrocities bridging the Palestine War and the ongoing Syrian conflict in mind — as well as the stories and images of unimaginable suffering and inhumanity that meet us each day in the media — one might justifiably expect Shatila Stories to offer a detailed account of war, displacement, pain, and death. This is not what you will find. More precisely, while these things necessarily exist in the landscape of the book — lurking in the shadows and on the fringes, at times reasserting their presences — they are neither its focus nor its motive. As Ziervogel explains in her introduction:

I was clear in my mind that I didn’t want flight stories from the writers. These have been covered enough by our media. I wanted to address something else, something that comes from my experience as a writer of stories: the power of collaborative imagination to open up new ways of remembering and from that, perhaps, a vision for the future.

Shatila Stories is also not a “poor-refugee-can-also-write kind of book,” as Meike Ziervogel also feared it might be interpreted. Instead, the genesis, conception, and realization of the book testify to the powers of collaborative imagination. Ziervogel, the founder and director of London-based Peirene Press, which specializes in first translations of European novellas into English, reached out at the beginning of 2017 to the Lebanon-based charity Basmeh & Zeitooneh (which translates as “the smile and the olive”). The nongovernmental organization runs community centers in a number of refugee camps, including Shatila. “I wanted to find a group of Syrian writers,” she writes, “teach them the principles of storytelling and then publish a book of their work.” Suhir Helal, the Syrian editor of the book, similarly insists:

We normalised their lives instead of treating them as victims. We did not go there to deliver aid, money or food. We went there to deliver a unique workshop that touches the hidden aspect of our existence; the creativity and imagination of a human being.

Ziervogel arrived in Shatila in July 2017, accompanied by the London-based Helal. In the meantime, Basmeh & Zeitooneh had run a preselection workshop and sent them 20 short writing samples. Still, as might be expected, the project was anything but straightforward. “Suhir and I didn’t choose the best extracts. That was not an option,” explains Ziervogel. “We chose the nine least bad.” It was of course not simply that most of the participants “struggled to write proper Arabic and organize their thoughts” — many of the authors had never completed school and some had never read a novel — but that, over the course of the workshop,

the writers dealt with many challenges: mainly illnesses due to the atrocious hygiene in the overcrowded camp, but also the sudden deaths of family members. One participant’s niece was killed by the low-hanging electrical cables, a grandmother slipped badly in one of the camp’s muddy alleys and someone else’s father died in Syria.

After hitting rock bottom and scolding themselves for being so naïve as to undertake the project, toward the end of the third day, Ziervogel recalls, something changed: the authors became focused and determined. “I’ve needed this opportunity for such a long time,” said Omar Khaled Ahmad, one of the co-authors. “I had a lot of thoughts to write down but I didn’t know how to direct and express them. I have now learned how to organize my thoughts and I’m so happy to write the story.” In October 2017, Ziervogel and Helal returned to Shatila and sat down with each of the nine writers individually, in order to bring out the strengths in the stories and finish them. Afterward, Nashwa Gowanlock translated everything into English.

Whatever other admirable effects it may have had — a powerful exercise in art therapy, a continuing donation to a relevant charity (£0.50 for each book sold goes to Basmeh & Zeitooneh) — the novella is a remarkable work of art in its own right. Remarkable not only as a rare, if not unique, instance of collaboration between publisher, translator, editor, and nine co-authors, but also as a structurally innovative contribution to the genre of narrative prose fiction. “We received four good stories and five interesting drafts,” the introduction explains, which suggests a collection of nine stories by each individual author, but the piece is something much more cohesive and holistic: a fluid, continuous piece of prose with no visible seams, breaks, or awkward transitions.

Hiba Marei, the author of the opening chapter, describes a chaotic scene at the Syrian-Lebanese border that resembles her own experience. (A Palestinian-Syrian born in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Syria, Marei and her family fled in December 2012 after the camp suffered an air strike by Syrian government forces.) Our central character’s name is Reham. Traveling by car across the border, images of “shooting and shouting and panic and fear and blood” flicker through her mind before she finally succumbs to sleep. When Reham arrives at Shatila, she and her family meet Muneef, a boy living in the camp, who guides them toward the apartment that would become their new home. She spots graffiti on a wall that Muneef proudly declares he had freshly painted that morning, which reads, “Don’t talk about the camp unless you know it.”

The first two chapters are written from Reham’s perspective and give an account of her life before her family’s flight from Syria. This centers on her marriage to Marwan, and its repercussions: “That’s the way for women in our culture: we spend our whole lives forgiving and getting nothing in return.” Reham’s story is her fight for independence, her discovery of her own strength and identity. It is also the story of women all over the world, of cultures past, present, and, no doubt, to come.

Each chapter is sensitively written and emotionally compelling, but equally compelling are the shifts in perspective between chapters. In the opening chapters we experience the camp from Reham’s point of view, but we are also introduced to Adam, her young brother. Later, we will see the world through Adam’s eyes and learn of his love for a young woman who has grown up in Shatila, Shatha. Later yet, we focus on Shatha, her family, and the complexity of her relationship with the camp: “I tell him how I feel deeply conflicted when it comes to the camp. That I both love and despise it, that it bores me yet I long for it, how I reject it and desire it.” In another chapter, Jafra, a young girl, is “named after the martyred hero […] killed in an Israeli air strike over Beirut in 1976, […] a national icon,” and in another we meet Youssef, a kind of Mafioso in the camp (which the Lebanese police refuse to enter), as he threatens a young man for not paying his electricity bill. It then turns out that this same young man, Ahmad, is the alcoholic father of Jafra. And so on. By the end, we’ve experienced a symphony of perspectives on life in the Shatila camp. The psychological proximity of each character to the other, the fact that there is no such thing as a minor character in this book, reflects the claustrophobia of the setting, with its narrow, bricolage alleys, its threatening, low-hanging electrical cables that crosshatch the sky, and some 22,000 human beings living in a space built for 3,000.

While Shatila Stories is an excellent work of narrative prose fiction, and ought to be measured and valued as such, it’s also politically charged. The poem that prefaces the book demands: “Spare us your good intentions, your quiet pity. / Instead, look up and raise your fist at the sky.” And the stories the book contains ask readers not only to bear witness, but also to consider their own responsibility. “One of the worst things that can happen to a person is to be forced to live without goals,” reflects Shatha, considering her own and others’ existence in the camp, “[a]nd the sign of ultimate failure is for them to live two identical days. As for me, my life is the epitome of failure.” But it is not her failure, because her life is circumscribed by forces beyond her control. “[A]ll of them,” she continues, “boys and girls, men and women — bear the same wounds. Born bearing the burden of the Palestinian cause into a country which refuses to accept them as citizens, keeping them as refugees, as outcasts, they have grown up suffering.” Here I was reminded of Hannah Arendt’s assessment of human rights: “The fundamental deprivation of human rights is manifested first and above all in the deprivation of a place in the world which makes opinions significant and actions effective.” How relevant these words have remained. Shatila Stories is a hymn to life in adverse conditions, but it is also a call for change, and this too must be acknowledged. “When I embarked on this project,” reflects Ziervogel in the introductory pages,

I had the idea that by pooling our imaginations we might be able to access something that would transcend the boundaries that surround individuals, nations and entire cultures. In the face of human catastrophes such as the Syrian refugee crisis, I wanted to see if it was possible to alter our thinking and so effect change.

Together, the authors, editors, translator, and coordinators have achieved the first of these goals. The second is left up to us.

Isaac Nowell is a writer who lives in Cornwall, United Kingdom.

The post A Hymn to Life: On “Shatila Stories” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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